Agenda and minutes
Venue: LB 41 - Loxley House, Station Street, Nottingham, NG2 3NG. View directions
Contact: Phil Wye Email: phil.wye@nottinghamcity.gov.uk
No. | Item |
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Apologies for Absence Minutes: Phyllis Brackenbury Chris Cook Maria Ward John Yarham |
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Declarations of Interest Minutes: None. |
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Minutes of the meeting held on 18 January 2017. Minutes: The minutes of the meeting held on 18 January 2017 were agreed by the Board as a true record and signed by the Chair. |
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Key Messages and Items for Information Minutes: Alison Michalska updated the Board:
(a)
the inquest into the death of
Shanay Walker took place at the
beginning of February, with a verdict due on the 29th
March. Outcomes of the Serious Case Review will not be released
until the inquest is complete; (b)
Nottingham City Council has taken part in a pilot of re-inspection
by Ofsted, as they were previously judged to require improvement.
NCC is now judged to be good overall, with further work required in
work with care leavers; (c) this is Dot Veitch’s last Children’s Partnership Board before her retirement. Dot has been instrumental in co-ordinating the Board and members wish her well in her retirement. |
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Small Steps Big Changes PDF 2 MB Presentation by Luke Murray, Programme Manager Minutes: Luke Murray, Programme Manager, gave a presentation to the Board, highlighting the following:
(a)
the Small Steps, Big Changes (SSBC) programme is lottery funded for
10 years and is focused in four wards of the city to deliver three
child development outcomes: communication & language, nutrition
and social & emotional development. Activities are co-ordinated
by the Programme to deliver to these three outcomes, and evaluated
to see which ones make the greatest impact; (b)
the SSBC programme is collaborative in
order to work and develop new services in the hope that these will
continue beyond the funding period. Collaboration is between
existing workforces and newly commissioned workforces such as
Family Mentors. There are also partnerships with the community and
parent boards; (c)
examples of successful aspects of the programme include the Family
Mentor programme, Small Steps at Home, the Imagination Library and
the Innovation Fund; (d)
the programme aims to keep children at
the heart, with parents leading the way. This involves lots of
events and engagements, as well as parent panels in order to keep
parents involved in the design of services; (e)
one challenge of the programme is to
ensure consistent engagement with the workforce, as it require
support and guidance from experts in order to make successful
changes beyond the programme’s 10 year period. Another
challenge is leading on system change, as one of the
programme’s principal aims is a move to early intervention
away from later services; (f) upcoming work by SSBC includes a shared learning event on 12 May at Nottingham Conference Centre, the FRED programme to encourage fathers to read with their children, and work with the National Literacy Trust to investigate a literacy hub for the city;
The following points were raised during the discussion which followed:
(g)
schools are a key partner to the SSBC
programme and they have met with and presented to head teachers
across the four wards. However, more could be done to promote the
programme as it is not seen as relevant as it is aimed at
pre-school children; (h) the take-up of Family Mentors has been higher in the Aspley and Bulwell wards as they were introduced there first and so are more established. Every new mother is given a phone call offering the service and there are currently around 400 children with mentors.
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children and young people's health and wellbeing in Nottingham city - an update PDF 290 KB Report of the Director of Public Health Additional documents: Minutes: Helene Denness, Consultant in Public Health, introduced the report giving an update on children and young people’s health and wellbeing in the context of Nottingham City’s Children and Young People Plan 2016-20. Helene highlighted the following:
(a)
nearly 48% of women in Nottingham City
are breastfeeding at 6 weeks which is better than the England
average. Nottingham has the best initiation and 6 week
breastfeeding rate of all its statistical neighbours; (b)
18.7% of mothers in Nottingham City were smokers at the time of
delivery which is significantly higher than the England average.
Every mother is referred to stop smoking services during pregnancy,
and 70% of these quit, however too many opt out of this; (c)
the percentage of overweight or obese
children in year 6 is 39% which is slightly lower than the
statistical neighbourhood average but significantly higher than the
England average. This number has plateaued and is not
reducing; (d)
mental and emotional health problems
affect about 1 in 10 children and young people living in the UK.
Using this estimate nearly 4,000 children and young people aged
5-16 in Nottingham have a mental health problem; (e)
voluntary and community sector organisations have identified issues
around mental health problems with access to services, lack of
understanding in schools, academic stress, lack of services for
young adults and bereavement;} (f)
priorities for 2017/18 are to further
enhance the community eating disorder service, increase capacity
for Child and Adult Mental Health Services (CAMHS) interventions,
develop a CAMHS liaison function and to deliver a joint agency
workforce plan to support children’s emotional and mental
health needs. RESOLVED to
(1)
note the contents of the report and progress on health
and wellbeing outcomes in the Nottingham City Children and Young
People’s Plan; (2) note progress in improving the emotional and mental health of children and young people in Nottingham. |
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Presentation by Sharon O’love, SHARP Manager Minutes: Sharon O’Love, SHARP Manager, gave a presentation to the Board on the Self-Harm Awareness & Resource (SHARP) Project, highlighting the following:
(a)
the SHARP project is funded by the
Nottingham City Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), initially for
18 months and then extended to 3 years. Its main aim is to raise
awareness, build confidence and skills, and provide support to
front-line service providers and professionals to intervene and
manage young people who present with self-harm and suicidal
behaviours; (b)
there is a lot of evidence that early
intervention works in reducing self-harm and suicidal behaviour.
Between October 2015 and September 2016 all completed therapeutic
interventions saw a reduction in these behaviours, and no young
people risk assessed required a referral to the Children’s
Emergency Department. There has also been a 28% reduction of
children and young people presenting with self-harm to the
Children’s Emergency Department between February 2014 and
February 2015; (c)
there are 66 school clinics, with most
secondary schools having a clinic monthly, which identify early
signs of self-harm or suicidal behaviours and undertake risk
assessments. A robust safety plan is written, with some young
people referred to specialist CAMHS services. However, 87% of young
people attending receive support through universal
services; (d)
additional services include SHARP 4
Parents, for parents running bi-monthly in every area, and TRANS4ME
for young transgender people. TRANS4ME ran 42 sessions last year
with 204 young people supported and has won awards; (e) funding from the CCG has enabled free training for front-line professionals, with the aim of running 15 sessions per month. These are on self-harm awareness, as well as other issues such as drugs, transgender issues, males and suicide, and early harmful behaviours in children. Between October 2015-September 2016, 133 training sessions were delivered with 1375 professionals attending;
The following points were raised during the
discussion which followed: (f)
young people are nominated by individual
schools to attend clinics, and they must have consent to attend.
They are given a 45 minute robust risk-assessment, given coping
strategies and a crisis card with contacts; (g) the SHARP service also offers training to the voluntary and community sector, but this can be difficult sometimes as they are a very small team. |
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Elective Home Education PDF 229 KB Report of the Corporate Director for Children and Adults Additional documents: Minutes: Nick Lee, Head of Access and Learning, introduced the report providing an overview of Elective Home Education (EHE) in Nottingham, highlighting the following:
(a)
legally all parents have a right to home
educate their children and there is no requirement to inform the
local authority of this. The children must have a suitable
education, but this does not include following the national
curriculum or taking exams; (b)
sometimes EHE can be a positive choice
for a child if the parents are committed and have the time and
capacity to provide a broad education, and to work towards suitable
qualifications. However in many cases it is chosen for negative
reasons such as where relationships with a school have broken
down; (c)
there are two officers at the council
who work with EHE families: a Co-ordinator who manages caseload and
records, and a Partnership Officer who develops partnerships to
support the families and share good practice. When a child is
removed from a school’s roll for EHE, a 3 way meeting is set
up between the school, family and council to make sure that the
child’s educational needs are met. A letter is written to the
parent if the council does not support a move to EHE outlining the
reasons why; (d)
there are currently increasing numbers
and more turnover of children in EHE at both a regional and
national level. There has also been concern by Ofsted that some
children registered as EHE may be in unregistered, potentially
illegal schools, though there is no evidence of this in
Nottingham; (e)
there is concern around the profile of
the children in EHE in Nottingham as a high proportion of them are
either open to, or have previously been open to, social care. A
number of them also have identified special educational needs, with
5 currently being open to an Education Health and Care
Plan; The following points were raised during the discussion which followed:
(f)
the local authority has developed
relationships with colleges to encourage these children to move
onto Further Education. They do not have to be on roll to take
their GCSEs as they can do this in exam centres; (g) the letter that is sent to parents discouraging them from EHE has no legal status but is backed up by professionals where appropriate. Nottingham is seen as one of the more proactive local authorities for EHE.
RESOLVED to note the findings of the report and associated presentation and consider the implications / cascade across respective areas of responsibility. |
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Participation Strategy action plan 2016-17 PDF 342 KB Report of the Corporate Director for Children and Adults Additional documents: Minutes: Jon Rea, Partnership Officer introduced the report giving a brief summary of achievements during the first full year of the Strategy action plan and signposting areas for further work going forward, highlighting the following:
(a)
the Participation Strategy was adopted a
year ago. It has met and exceeded its targets for 2016-17 of both
holding 60 participation events and 1000 children and young people
(CYP). The participation strategy has three key strands: individual
participation, social participation and public participation.
Examples of activites within these
areas as well as areas for development are included in the report
and the presentation attached to these minutes; (b)
individual participation supports the voice of CYP in statutory
areas like Children in Care, as well of those engaged by
non-statutory targeted and specialist services like Priority
Families Many of the most vulnerable CYP in the city benefit from
participation; (c)
social participation involves CYP engaged through universal and
targeted services, including through education provision and
community-based activities; (d)
public participation is a
well-established field of participation activity with a calendar of
forums and groups such as Primary Parliament and Youth
Cabinet. (e)
colleagues in many areas and services
support the participation agenda. These are supported by the
Participation in Steering Group. A participation model called
‘Sharing the Future’ is being trialled with the
University of Nottingham. This will also help shape engagement and
participation in the voluntary sector;
RESOLVED to
(1)
recognise the importance of the work done across the
Children’s Partnership to support children and young people
to be involved in decisions which affect their lives and the
contribution it makes to the work of the Partnership; (2)
approve the direction of the Participation Strategy and
to continue to contribute to the successful delivery of the action
plan; (3) consider specific areas of participation work for inclusion in the 2017-18 participation action plan. |
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Partner Update: NCVS Minutes: This item was withdrawn from the agenda. |
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Minutes: The Forward Plan was noted |